Baseball picks up road win against No. 30 Millsaps, 5-4

Apr 06, 2011

Box Score

JACKSON, Miss.—With Millsaps threatening to score the game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth, the No. 10 Birmingham-Southern baseball team hung on for the 5-4 road win this evening in Jackson, Miss. The Panthers move to 24-5 with the win; the 30th-ranked Majors fall to 21-12.

Millsaps scored the first two runs of the game in the bottom of the first inning, but BSC came back in the top of the second with three runs to take the lead. The Panthers scored twice on a Majors error, and then took the lead on an RBI single by junior Jon Walker.

The Majors tied it up in the bottom of the fourth, and the score remained knotted at 3-3 until the top of the seventh, when an RBI single by senior Drew Leachman put the Panthers back in the lead, 4-3. BSC added another single run in the top of the ninth on another Millsaps error to go up 5-3.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Majors led off with a double and then got runners on first and third due to a BSC error. Another error allowed Millsaps to score and the other runner to advance to second. The next batter walked, and then a sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third with one out. The second out was a strikeout for senior Clay Jones, who came in for the final two innings for the Panthers, and the third out was a run-down pick-off of the runner on third to end the game.

BSC got 10 total hits, led by Leachman who was 3-of-5 at the plate. Junior Jordan Burchett started on the mound and threw three innings, giving up five hits and two earned runs with five strikeouts. Senior Richard Vance (3-0) came in for the next three innings and got the win, allowing four hits and one earned run with two strikeouts. Senior Drew Crofton threw the seventh inning, and Jones came in for the last two, getting his sixth save of the season.

The Panthers travel north to Greencastle, Ind., for a three-game conference series against DePauw University this weekend.